We are back with the usual Polar Bears, Sket Dance, Moyashimon Returns and Accel World updates.

————————————————————–

Shirokum Cafe – 22

Polar bear-“Wow that is one huge animal…” Polar bear-“That’s what she said! OOOOOOO!”

Shirokuma Cafe decided to bring out ALL the penguins this week with the entire episode focused on the penguin characters of the show. Lately I haven’t been loving the first halves of the show, but this time around I actually found it enjoyable because of the return of the three other penguin species. These poor salesmen provided some (at least what I thought were) interesting facts about how to tell each penguin species apart with their cards. Their ideas of trying to sell their cards were pretty entertaining as well. As for the second half, I still can’t believe the whole Miss Penko thing escalated to the point it is now, hahaha. Penguin is just a poor blob of awkwardness without any luck, which become more apparent through the picnic scene. Of course the women penguins would trade ribbons to get their favorite colors, and of course Penguin would flub up and accidentally reveal to them that he still doesn’t know their names. It was just another day in the sad love life of Penguin.~

————————————————————–

Sket Dance – 73

You better run before she explodes!!

Well, the student council might be finally assembled, but the new team is nowhere as unified as the old team was. Katou is still an asshat and Usami is… well, Usami. I vaguely remember them getting more cooperative in the manga (Katou at least), but even with the council working together, I just can’t imagine them being as established without the genius Agata and extremely popular Michiru.

As for the manga battle, that was brilliant. I can’t think of any other long running anime (minus Gintama) that bothers putting so much time into random nonsensical stories like this. Sure One Piece can sometimes delve into things like this, but it’s just not the same. Anyways, back to Sket, the manga part was fun. Even Roman’s manga break the fourth wall and I had completely forgotten that the stereotypical shonen guy even existed. …I’m sad to say that I don’t think he ever has screentime again. He may have been an asshat, but at least he was a funny asshat.

————————————————————–

Moyashimon Returns – 09

Sawaki-“WHOOOOAAA DUDDEEEE I CAN TASTE ALL KINDS OF COLORS!!”

Time for more crazy adventures in Paris with our crack team of scientists! Last week we got to watch Koaru, Kawahama and Sawaki run around searching for Haruka and find her in the same episode; however part of this episode follows some back story on how she met Ryuuta for first time as children. So does Haruka actually like this random guy? I don’t really get that impression of them as a “couple” sure they were nice together as children and the Haruka seems completely harmless, but I died laughing when she decided to get drunk! Unfortunately she doesn’t turn all sexy in fact she turns into a crazy violent woman who loves to scratch or make you bleed. Other than Haruka going through her stuffs this week we followed Sawaki spending some extra time with Marie who was still having her own set of issues about taking over her the family wine business. Oh and I noticed there were lots of new shipping pairs in this episode! Like Haruka and Koaru or Sawaki and Marie? If they aren’t pairing them up they certainly are setting up something for a third season because there are only two episodes left.

————————————————————–

Accel World – 21

Niko-“IF YOU CALL ME CUTE ONE MORE TIME! I WILL MELT YOU INTO SCRAP METAL!”

After about twenty-four minutes I feel as if nothing really was accomplished in this outing. Other than Niko, the episode seemed to be a patchwork of many of the elements I disliked from previous episodes. But rather than being obnoxiously offensive, it just comes off as mildly boring.

First, Taku and Haru have one of their sappy heart to hearts that feel contrived rather than moving. The entire scene is wrapped up in homoerotic innuendo nullifying any weight it had. While their relationship has been at the forefront for most of this arc, I don’t feel as if it’s really gone anywhere. We know that their close… but that’s about it.

Second, there is another uninteresting character introduced. Accel World has had it’s fair share of these and Blood Leopard sadly falls into this group. Certain plot points surrounding her background are quickly shoved down the viewers’ throats and not much else is done. Does she have the potential to be a cool character? Yes. Will it be taken advantage of? Probably not.

Last, is the underwhelming impact of the episodes ending. Haru isn’t against a single person, but an organization. But we already knew this from the Okinawan arc. This might be news to our round hero, but isn’t to the viewers. There could have been something more important revealed, such as the nature of the organization or a clue hinting to its greater implications.

18 Responses to “Meta Mash – 35”

Polar Bear – Not ALL you know. King Penguin was not present
I enjoyed both halves, the first more than the second. The penguins and their cards were just enjoyable. Though if I were to play that game I would be stumped as well. I had to pause the show for a bit to spot the difference that they were pointing out.
The second half looks like a page out of a harem anime, only 10x better coz it’s penguins and the girls aren’t fighting for the guy. Which is weird coz they really do want to share Penguin-san with each other. Huh. Pretty sure that wouldn’t work if they were humans. Must be an animal thing.

AW – I like some expositions like this but with only a few episodes remaining it won’t hold much ground with the infodump. I think people just want Noumi’s butt to get served so ehh. I like Niko and Pard though.

I’ve noticed that the meta-posts have been popping up more frequently. Is the idea to transition to more meta-type posts and away from series episodics? That’s unfortunate, I really don’t like the meta-type posts so I’ve been ignoring them.

Naw, these are just for shows no one wants to cover in a full episodic format because we either don’t have enough to talk about each week or simply don’t have the time to write a full post. These are a lot easier to do and it lets us cover a larger breadth of shows (without killing all the writers).

So don’t worry, the normal length posts aren’t going away! They will always be the main attraction.

Thanks for the update! I tend to skip the meta-type posts because there are some shows in there that I’m not at the most current episode, so I avoid them so I won’t get accidentally spoiled by a pic/comment/something.

Yeah! I don’t think anyone in their right mind could tackle that series week after week with a full write up! Sometimes these shows lack plot development or are sloooooowwww like One Piece and Fairy Tail! I love them to death but I admit they have slow moments.

Yeah, whoever would tackle a series like that with a full episodic every week might feel that their head might explode over time. I understand where you’re coming from. There are shows I love to watch but they have slow moments like the filler episodes from Naruto Shippuuden. Speaking of which, I gotta get up to date. I’m, like, 20 episodes behind.

“This week on Shining Hearts… nothing happened. Whatsername-in-the-nun-outfit walked around the village handing out bread, while the other two stayed at the shop selling bread and telling Rick they were selling bread, while Rick grunted responses. Then Medea came and said something uplifting, even though isn’t she their competitor or something? Then something vaguely interesting blew up at the castle to end the show, but we know we’re not going to find out about it next week.”

AW: I think I’d actually prefer if all the rest of the episodes were more like this, rather than the fighting episodes that I’ve really come to dislike. I’m not the biggest fan of fighting anime anyway. This was actually a story, and more interesting than watching repeated closeups of Haru, Taku, and Noumi as they monologue about the fight they’re supposedly having.

And I thought Blood Leopard was a good character for the show. At least she didn’t talk your ear off, and got stuff done (pretty much the opposite of everyone else in the show). Plus, Maid outfit on a crotch-rocket bike is amusing.

I can think of so many other shows I’d rather see a second season of than Accel World (maybe the ONLY show this season I’d want a second season of less is Who is Imouto?). This is one of those shows I’ll be glad is over. As it is, it’s the one I’ve come closest to dropping of the 19 shows I’m watching this season (I didn’t watch ep 15 until 16 was out and people said Haru got better, and then I just skipped through 15 and 16 until Haru stopped whining).

Accel World: Niko makes for a good Spartan style trainer. She’s also completely unpredictable jumping from moe to tsundere to yandere as if they were mood swings. What was surprising was that she knew about the Incarnate System and apparently has known it for a while. So it raises the question as to why she didn’t use those abilities during the attack from Yellow Radio’s Legion and fighting against Chrome Disaster.

What would be good for the story is more explanation on this group that manages to stay under the Burst Linker radar even though they’re still connected to the local net. That’s the most interesting mystery. And the names are piling up: Dusk Taker, Sulfur Pot and now Rust Jigsaw.

Blood Leopard might be an interesting character but there aren’t enough episodes to flesh out her personality. So far, her emotionless presentation shows that she probably a cold person. Her avatar appearence is frightening, however. The highlight was seeing the kids at the arcade playing Tekken.

Well, I think Niko’s explanation helped explain why those Incarnate abilities weren’t used: They’re for covering up, balancing up your own weaknesses, not for expanding your strengths. Like Haru’s weakness is literally weakness, and the Incarnate system allows him to use his high value characteristic – Speed – to augment his low value characteristic – his strength.

In the fight with Yellow Radio, who knows if Black Lotus and Yellow Radio were using them, since they were moving far too fast for everyone else to see (which doesn’t really fit in with the constant yakking that goes on in these fights).